Sab: Sublime Love
Whereas in the Wordsworth poem nature is the source of the sublime, love is the focal point for the sublime in Sab. As Carlota contemplated him, Enrique became the ideal lover, the “sublime creation of her imagination.” He only sought to be united with her into a “poetic ecstasy of love.” While he was absent, she passed the time imagining the next time they would be together. As they traveled to Cubitas, nature would be more beautiful because of his presence, his voice blending in with the whisper of teh trees and the babbling of the stream.
Unfortunately for Carlota, Enrique is not the man who could love her in such a way as she imagined. His motive was financial gain. Sab, rather, was the ideal lover for Carlota, though she was oblivious to this fact. He sought only to make her happy, and she was the source of his happiness as well. Sab relates to Teresa an instance when he was overwhelmed by his great love for Carlota. One night when Carlota came outside her window, Sab was ther and crept close to her. She seemed to him ethereal and supernatural with a divine halo around her head. Sab felt so transported into a “sublime ecstasy of divine and human love,” that he believed that both he and Carlota would die and ascend to God’s throne. This scene reminds me of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet where Romeo compares Juliet to the sun. Juliet dares to love a man who is unacceptable to her family, but Carlota does not recognize that the very love she seeks is right under her nose. Sab is Carlota’s hero, the one who sacrifices himself for her by giving her the lottery, and dies of a broken heart, a “sublime martyr,” unrecognized by his belived. Upon reading Sab’s letter, Carlota finally gives Sab that which he sought- one of her tears.
I was convinced, while reading Sab, that Carlota would at some point realize how much she meant to Sab while he was still alive. But I suppose, perhaps in the spirit of tragic romanticism (am I way off track here? —probably!), she does not have any idea until reading his letter to Teresa. That may have been part of Avellaneda’s intent, in any case, to emphasize the fact that we often come to our senses about a situation when it is a lost cause.